TEHRAN All 69 members of a women trafficking gang, three of whom were police officers and one a Spanish lawyer, were arrested and handed over to judicial officials.

The gang, which was active in the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, had made enormous profits through women trafficking, as much as 30 million pesetas for each woman in a year.

According to a radio report, the women who were trafficked by the gang were from Colombia, Brazil, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Chile, Czech Republic, Croatia, and Belarus.

The report stated that the policy of the gang was to deceive foreign women by telling them that they would find them good jobs in Spain. After bringing them to the country, they would take their passports and ID cards. Then they forced the women into prostitution in order to pay their debts.

The Spanish Minister of the Interior recently announced that some 55 human trafficking gangs were broken up in this country during the last 6 months, and 236 of their members were arrested.

Expressing regret over the activities of human traffickers, he said that the Spanish authorities are stepping up efforts to fight this crime.

During a symposium on the condition of prostitutes last year, it was emphasized that young girls and women from Latin America and Asia are brought to Europe for prostitution. Most of these women are suffering from incurable physical and mental diseases.